Life with the triggers of Childhood PTSD (CPTSD)

Life with the triggers of childhood PTSD

You are living your life and all seems well. You know how to live your life and function well … most of the time.
Today is one of those “most of the time” days.
It all started well, but things have been going distinctly downhill. You have felt uneasy, on edge. You are trying to discuss the things that are unsettling you. No one will listen. You feel on edge but do not necessarily realise how on edge. After all, this is how your childhood felt. You have no measure of how bad it was in your childhood. How scary. How out of control.
Then the event happens. To others it seems innocuous. You are hard placed later to identify what it was. But it has happened. You are spinning out of control. You can’t reason. You can’t even talk to the people who are trying to get you to do what they want. To get you out of the physical location you are in. All you can do is stay. You are frozen. You couldn’t move if you wanted to. You can’t even will your legs to move. It feels like moving is dying. It is a dreadful, terrifying situation.
Later someone takes you aside and has a ‘talk’ with you. You can’t explain what just happened and they do not have the insight to recognise a PTSD flashback. To understand you are in a crisis situation. That you are beyond even fight or flight. You are thrown into a freeze. In all likelihood you have dissociated, so it is really hard coming back to the present.
So you are judged harshly. Maybe it is a work situation and you are threatened with losing your job. Maybe you car pool and the person you car pool with berates you all the way home while you cry uncontrollably and can barely drive. The person is so lacking in even a basic level of empathy or compassion they don’t even have the decency to shut up when they realise how distraught you are. Maybe you struggle to go back to that place. You sit outside and feel that to walk in there is to die. You have to muster so much courage to go in there. And you have so much courage to face what feels like death. But no one understands or recognises that because of their ignorance of trauma.
And maybe your work is in a place where the people claim to work with traumatised children. Yet they are so trauma uninformed they cannot recognise trauma in a staff member. They do not even adopt a trauma informed practice in the work place.
And you are shamed, and feel ashamed. You are told you are an awful person, it is all your fault. There is no understanding. You are left with the shame and the feeling of being defective.
And maybe you wonder if anyone will ever be able to help you. And you wonder when your life will stop being derailed by these triggers.
There is help out there. There are counsellors who are trauma trained. Counsellors who understand. Counsellors who have compassion for you and your situation. Counsellors who can help you heal and be able to live a life that is more manageable. Counsellors who can validate your experience and understand why you act the way you do.
And a lot of those counsellors will have experienced similar things in their own lives. They have been able to heal and now share what they have learned with those yet to heal.
I am one of those counsellors. I understand trauma, both from a personal and academic perspective. I understand how to work with individuals affected by trauma, especially the trauma that occurred during childhood. I know how to work safely, to teach the skills that you need to learn. The skills you never learned in childhood, through no fault of your own. I know how to help you heal from the triggers that send you spinning into a fight/flight or freeze response. I care that your experience is validated. I care that you heal and can lead a life that is not dominated by triggering moments.
If you would like my help you can contact me on 4049396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

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